Nov 20 we could use your help!

I rejoice to announce that our college campus preaching tour and our time training Pastor James from Bangladesh here on American soil has been fulfilled. In six weeks, we traveled more than 9,500 miles overland and preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ at 25 university campuses. Pastor James was also given opportunity to exhort several local bodies of believers, to preach the Gospel inside a county jail, to lift up the name of Jesus down on the Las Vegas Strip, to camp in a tent for the first time, to see and touch snow for the first time, to behold a spectacular display of the Aurora Borealis for the first time, and to observe a bear for the first time. It was a glorious time of fellowship and labor with a persecuted brother and the joyous fruit of discipleship sown on the other end of the globe. I have put together a short video featuring a Bangladeshi missionary preaching Jesus Christ on American soil. Perhaps this will whet your appetite for the blog post that Ricky is working on right now, one that recaps the journey with more detail. Stay tuned, and enjoy this for now:

A Bangladeshi Missionary Preaches in America

Friends, we here at Full Proof Gospel Ministries trust the Lord for His provision and labor freely as God provides. Over the years, we have made it a practice of following the Lord into the field first instead of waiting for a specific amount of support to come in, of focusing primarily on the testimony of what God has done and what He is doing as opposed to requests for financial support. When this ministry was founded in 2004, we established these bylaws in the area of finances and have purposed to live by them:

Expenditures and budgets for this ministry will be bounded by provision, irregardless of investment potential. Full Proof Gospel Ministries will not subject itself to public or private financial debt for investment or ministry purposes.

Fundraising and/or support gathering efforts will focus primarily upon the activities of the ministry and not requests for funds or solicitation. Financial support is needed and will be accepted but is not to be vigorously pursued or requested.

So that we may remain faithful to these convictions and continue to sow in the lives and ministries of people like Pastor James in Bangladesh, Brother Bishnu in Nepal, and Ricky Springer (a young man we discipled who now serves as a full-time missionary to the Jewish people with Full Proof Gospel Ministries), it behooves me to make some needs known so that you all can join us in praying for and seeking the Lord’s provision.

While we were on the road last month, Full Proof Gospel Ministries lost its single largest and longest-running source of consistent monthly support. This came unexpected and not because of any offense. The faithful brethren who had been so faithful in giving for so long simply ran out of resources as a result of persecution in the world because of their testimony. At $600/month, this is a huge hit for our ministry. Never in the history of FPGM has our committed monthly support exceeded our monthly operating budget, and we have always relied upon special and unexpected gifts to continue the work. Now, the gap is much wider; and we need your help to make up for it. Praise God that the shortfall has already been met for November! Someone has already committed to December and January as well. The Lord is bountiful. By February, however, we hope to have Brother Ricky on the ground in Cape Town, South Africa for an extended period of time. This is a very expensive city, but it yields abundant opportunity for ministry amongst a sizable Jewish population. Couple this with our ongoing efforts in South Asia and South America, and our desire to shortly appoint another full-time missionary: we will have to meet MORE than the $600 shortfall for February and the months beyond. Know this also, in addition to the a $600 loss of regular monthly support, we were also another $200 under what we normally receive each month for October, and it’s looking that way for November. We could certainly use your help in obedience to the Lord.

If you believe this is a ministry you can support with more than your prayers, or if you already support FPGM on a monthly basis and feel you can increase that faithfulness, even if but a little, I have shared the needs. Our record is one of sowing into the work of the Gospel with simplicity and good stewardship. Some of the fruit of this can be seen in the video linked above. All we want to do is continue what you have seen and heard these past 10 years, so please pray that the Lord will make up the financial shortfalls that we are currently experiencing. For more information on how you can help, visit this link: http://fpgm.org/donate/.

My brethren, forget not the biblical injunction:

Beloved, thou doest faithfully whatsoever thou doest to the brethren, and to strangers; Which have borne witness of thy charity before the church: whom if thou bring forward on their journey after a godly sort, thou shalt do well: Because that for his name's sake they went forth, taking nothing of the Gentiles. We therefore ought to receive such, that we might be fellowhelpers to the truth (III John 5-7).

In the meantime, nothing is on hold, and the work does not pause; Full Proof Gospel Ministries goes forward in faith, trusting God to provide in ways that we cannot even comprehend. Now, if you will excuse me, I have to go look at some plane tickets to Cape Town, South Africa for Brother Ricky . . .